DIAMOND JUBILEE

Firstly, a few words of thanks to Her Majesty for giving us an extra day off this week to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.  Cheers Queenie! 

God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols

We’ll be toasting your good health next weekend with our very own garden party to celebrate the royal birthdays, diamond jubilee and arrival of summer.  It’s basically an excuse to pig out on pork pies and cake which are never far from my thoughts these days.  (Only 3 lbs to lose for the 2 stone award!)

However, a royal afternoon tea feast needs a garden fit for the queen so we’ve spent the last 2 days sprucing up our bit of little Britain.  If she happened to be passing through Charminster and decided to drop in for a cuppa then at least the place would be looking half decent. 

One's Garden

I’m sure she’d love a tour of our garden and a nice bit of tea and cake especially the yummy Victoria sponge I’m planning to bake with fresh cream and strawberries.  She could stop to admire the lovely white frothy flower heads of the Valeriana now standing tall at the back of the flower beds.  It’s grabbed the attention of a very hungry Emerald beetle who is positively hoovering up nectar from all the tiny flower heads. 

Lovely green beetle 

Heard it on the grape vine

Perhaps she’d prefer to inspect my collection of charity shop ceramics or the new grape vine kindly donated by my son’s girlfriend’s dad who is also a fellow gardener.  Naturally we’d put out a bowl of water for the corgis. 

As the kids had gone to the Rugby Sevens Festival, we popped out to Upton House for a quick butchers round their annual plant sale.  I was a little disappointed to see fewer sellers than usual and stalls featuring only run of the mill plants that you can normally buy in B&Q or other garden centres.  No specialist, unusual or rare specimens this time round.  I was almost on the point of going home when I spotted something hidden in the midst of the tomato plants that caught my eye. 

Cynara Cardunculus - cardoon or artichoke thistle a tall, silver leaved plant related to the globe artichoke.  I first saw this plant in some public gardens in Edinburgh and fell in love with its violet purple thistle like flower.  They grow over a metre tall and are stunning. 

I picked up the pot to head off to the checkout but then a bumbling old dear in a floppy linen hat clutching a mug of tea ambled over.  “Like artichokes dear?”  He enquired displaying a set of yellowy-brown gnashers that would require a scale and polish with an industrial sander.  “Would you like to come to my greenhouse to see the big one?” he mumbled.  Well I guess it would be rude not to.  The other half and I trailed along following our green fingered guide into a large roped off enclosure to emerge minutes later with a cardoon the size of a palm tree which we bought for £4.50.  Who says the milk of human kindness has curdled?

Cynara Cardunculus - artichoke thistle

Happy Diamond Jubilee!